Elections - Congressional

Candidates ramping up efforts in Dist. 3

PHOENIX - Already in a close and costly race, the candidates for Arizona's 3rd Congressional District are ramping up their efforts to get people to vote for them on Election Day.

Republican Rep. John Shadegg and his Democratic Rival, Phoenix attorney Bob Lord, have each released new ads and are talking to as many voters as they can over the phone and in person before Tuesday.

"I'll sleep and I'll eat, but other than that I'll be focused on this campaign and getting our message out to voters," Lord said.

Lord's goal is to personally contact 2,000 undecided voters between this week and Tuesday by knocking on doors and getting on the phone.

Shadegg spokeswoman Abby Winter said the 13-year incumbent has been attending various events and meetings with constituents around the district and is planning a get-out-the-vote district walk on Saturday. He also participated in a telephone town hall this week, and his campaign is working to put up more yard signs.

Both campaigns also recently released new ads.

Lord's shows seemingly everyday people calling Shadegg a President Bush loyalist who puts his party before his constituents. Shadegg's ad is more defensive, addressing the claims Lord has been making for nearly two months in various television ads.

Also, the fundraising committee for U.S. House Democrats has made the 3rd District among its top 10 priorities in the country, spending more than $2 million in television ads and mailers highly critical of Shadegg.

"Because the entire strategy of Mr. Lord and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, we've had to stay on a theme that says their claims aren't accurate and that I'm fighting for the people of Arizona, and that must be why national Democrats want to spend whatever it is defeating me," Shadegg said.

Shadegg said the ads against him are effective to a degree.

"You put that much money behind a message and you repeat it that many times and you tell it as compellingly as his ad writers tell it, some people believe it," he said. "But I think that because they're all negative, the majority of people are beginning to go, That just doesn't sound right.' "

Candidates typically have to establish their own persona before going on the attack, said Mike O'Neil, president of Tempe-based O'Neil Associates Public Opinion Research.

"But when you have an incumbent with the longevity and stature of John Shadegg, you don't beat him without giving people a reason to vote against him, as well," he said. "The sad fact is that more often than not negative attacks tend to work."

O'Neil said both candidates need to reinforce their messages in the final days before Tuesday.

Shadegg has been representing the district, which includes parts of Phoenix, Paradise Valley, Cave Creek and Carefree, since 1995. In February, he announced that he would not seek re-election, saying he wanted a new challenge. He changed his mind and decided to run 10 days later.

Lord's campaign has spent $1.4 million to unseat Shadegg, while the Congressman has spent $1.7 million defending his seat in what is the toughest re-election challenge he's faced.

"The big picture here, we have a very Republican district, a very established incumbent, but a very big Democratic year," O'Neil said. "The question is whether the third factor is enough to overcome the first two."